


Sound of Flames

by OrionPax9



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Author loves to chat in comments, Blind Tsuna, Female Sawada Tsunayoshi, Iemitsu's A+ parenting, Mafia Version of a Restraining Order, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2018-12-05 15:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11581200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionPax9/pseuds/OrionPax9
Summary: When Sakura Sawada is sealed, there is an unintended consequence that not even the Vongola could have predicted. Fortunately, she attracts a very protective Cloud to keep her safe from those who wouldn't understand her pain. Being blind is no fun, but that doesn't mean she's helpless. You don't always need to see for your heart to reach others. FemTsun





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not my idea. I'm am bringing it over with the original author's, sakurademonalchemist, permission from fanfiction.net. Please enjoy!

When she was five, something terrible happened. She didn't remember what exactly was done to her, but the aftermath was impossible to miss.

Sakura Sawada used to be a bright cheerful girl who loved being around people.

After that day, she never saw the sky again. In fact, she never saw much of anything after that.

The first clue Nana had that something was terribly wrong with her daughter came less than a week after her husband brought the "kindly" old man to their home along with his guards. She asked Sakura to bring her something from the kitchen...only to find her little girl looking around in a daze with her eyes unable to focus properly.

It only got worse from there. Within a month, Nana was given the grim prognosis from the doctors, all of whom said the same thing.

Physically, there was nothing wrong with her child. However it was very clear that Sakura had suffered some form of trauma...the result of which was that her mind shut down the parts of her mind that controlled her ability to see. Her child was declared legally blind at the young age of five years and four months from psychosomatic trauma.

With luck and a lot of love and care, Sakura might be able to regain her sight again...but that was a big if. After all, the little girl's mind prevented her from remembering what caused the issue, and the adults were unwilling to force her to remember for fear of making it worse.

Nana cried herself to sleep while hugging her child tightly for weeks after hearing the news.

With time, Sakura learned to adjust to her new situation. She was young, and while her sight was gone her personality seemed more of a shell of what it had been before.

 

Sakura was crying. While she had learned to adjust to her situation, that didn't mean her classmates understood or accepted it.

Some of the meaner girls had grabbed her and shoved her into a locked room...one that was right next to a really loud machine that was sending her poor ears into sensory overload. She found it easier to get around by using her hearing.

Hearing the door slam open, she flinched from the noise.

A callused hand about the same size of her own grabbed her. She whimpered, before it loosened a bit and became much gentler.

"Small herbivore, I won't hurt you," said a voice.

Sakura slowly opened her eyes, not that it really mattered.

Except she saw something. It was so warm and protective, yet aloof. Like the clouds she was starting to forget. The violet color was so very bright that when she felt the other child, a boy from the voice, take her hand, she gently squeezed it.

Feeling that gentle hand ruffle her hair, she relaxed. She was safe, protected. This person wouldn't hurt her.

She followed the boy out of the room, keeping close to him until she heard the familiar voice of her mother.

"Sakura!"

"Wao. You'll be fine now little bird."

Her mother hugged her tightly, thanking the little boy... Kyouya-kun... for finding her missing child.

It wouldn't be the first time Kyouya would be sent to find her.

"Wao. Little bird, did you get lost again?" asked Kyouya. His voice was uncharacteristically gentle around her, unlike others. His voice would grow hard and almost bloodthirsty if he was talking to anyone else.

She nodded shyly. Since losing her sight, she had become more introverted and not very outgoing. Having to adjust to 'seeing' with only her sense of hearing made her scared. Kyouya didn't complain, didn't take the fact she instinctively sought him out once she got lost in the mall out on her.

Instead he gently took her hand and started to look for her mother. She flinched whenever they got too close to crowds... she learned that loud noises hurt and nothing was louder than a large group of adults. Especially girls.

Fortunately Kyouya didn't like crowds much either. He lead her far away from the large groupings of adults and to someplace much quieter. Within half an hour her mother found them, and she was openly relieved to see Kyouya with her child.

The boy was supposedly very violent towards others...but he was kind to her child and that was all that mattered.

Considering Sakura seemed to instinctively seek out the older boy, Nana made a decision. She gave Kyouya her phone number, which he accepted with a great deal of maturity.

Apparently he had noticed the girl had a sixth sense for finding him in a crowd. Oddly, he didn't seem to mind. It was hard to feel like she was crowding him, especially considering she couldn't see.

She felt more like a little bird who had her wings cruelly clipped too young, and now was denied the freedom to fly. She could hop around and walk, but the Sky was out of her reach.

Nana had clearly entrusted the safety of the little bird to him. And Kyouya would not fail in keeping her safe. After all...she was his to care for.

 

Sakura, age seven...

Kyouya was in a bad mood today. Someone from his mother's family was supposed to be visiting, and Sakura's mother had recently gotten a letter from someone that her Mama was really mad at. She didn't want Sakura to stay in the house while he was there, but she had no friends to spend a few nights with.

Predictably, Kyouya found her within an hour and demanded to know why she was unhappy. Mostly because that generally meant several fools would soon be bitten to death in short order for bothering his little bird.

"You have unwanted family coming into town too?" said Kyouya, translating her quiet explanation.

Sakura nodded, her eyes as unfocused as ever. She had long since acquired a reputation among the children as being something of a "ditzy airhead who was always humming" and some of the adults who didn't know of her condition spoke of her being "not all there in the head". Needless to say Kyouya took great pleasure in disciplining anyone who was foolish enough to voice such things in his hearing. Or the hearing of his quickly growing force of almost-carnivores who had submitted to his rule.

The group quickly learned certain rules that were absolute.

One: when presenting reports do it in small groups of less than three.

Two: do not interrupt Kyouya while napping.

Three: Sakura-hime was to be protected or else, and if she was lost was to be directed immediately to her mother or Kyouya if found.

Anyone who didn't abide by those rules was bitten to death in short order.

Kyouya thought it over, before calling Sakura's mother. Within minutes she had a bag packed and was quietly shuffled off to Kyouya's house. Partly to keep her far, far away from Iemitsu, her so-called "Father", but also to act as a buffer between Kyouya and the one member of the family he could never intimidate or bite to death for getting on his nerves.

His grandfather, Fon.

Fon was strange, in Sakura's opinion. He felt like an adult and his 'fire' was a really pretty color that felt like an oncoming storm, one of the big ones.

Kyouya gently corrected where she looked, and she found that while she was looking up to where the red fire was centered, the real thing was much shorter. He was smaller than she was and rather amused at her reaction to him.

"Who is this adorable young lady?" asked Fon gently in Japanese.

Sakura blinked, before a shy smile came onto her face. Fon sounded kind, and the fire was gentle and warm. Like Kyouya.

"Sakura. Sawada Sakura," she said shyly, holding Kyouya's hand tightly. Kyouya grasped it a little tighter, letting her know he was there and would stay that way as long as she needed.

Fon watched the interaction with open interest.

"Well Sakura-san, it's nice to meet you. I'm Kyouya's favorite grandfather Fon."

Sakura giggled when Kyouya growled something under his breath about "annoying pint-sized carnivores".

Fon seemed to find her endlessly fascinating, and to the ire of Kyouya spent the majority of Iemitsu's visit with her...and by extension his grandson. Unfortunately for Kyouya, Sakura seemed just as fascinated with him and his pet monkey Lichi.

And then Kyouya's temper snapped. Like a brittle twig. With a loud snarl he grabbed his tonfa and went after Fon. The small man smirked and humored his grandson, though he didn't allow the younger boy to get the upper hand. If Kyouya beat him, he will have to earn it honestly.

Sakura, rather than feel afraid or alarmed by the sudden violence, "watched" entranced at the way the purple and red flames danced, almost like it was choreographed.

"So pretty...it's like dancing!" she said when Fon beat Kyouya.

Fon blinked, before a sly smile came upon his face.

"In a way it is a lot like dancing," he agreed. "Would you like to learn?"

Sakura blinked. Kyouya growled menacingly.

"Hands off my little bird you damn carnivore," snarled Kyouya.

"Come now Kyouya-kun. Surely it wouldn't hurt to let your...friend... learn how to defend herself," said Fon smiling.

It was clear Kyouya wasn't happy about the idea...but reluctantly agreed to let his "little bird" learn to fight. However he quickly vetoed anything like a sword or had sharp blades.

Though even Kyouya was caught off guard when Sakura turned out to be a natural at using a staff to fight. Bojutsu wasn't exactly a well practiced art anymore, what with guns becoming so prevalent these days, but considering Sakura was still blind and was still struggling to learn how to use her cane (half the time she completely forgot to bring it with her, and was still working on getting around solely based on what could only be echo-location) perhaps it wasn't that surprising at all.

And if Kyouya's grin was extra vicious as he realized his little bird could possibly be a hawk or other predatory creature in chick form... well, Fon certainly didn't comment on it.

Even if he was privately making bets with his daughter over when Kyouya would realize his obvious crush on the adorable little ball of fluff that was Sakura Sawada. Seriously, her smiles could be weaponized if she ever figured out how to pull it off.

 

Sakura tilted her head when she heard the odd sound that was completely out of place in her room. Today was White Day, and Kyouya had said he would reciprocate her home made chocolate that she had made with a lot of help from her mother.

Even if she would never be allowed near a kitchen alone until she could correctly identify spices by scent and learned how to use a knife without risking her health...she had been more or less banned from Home Economics class along with most of PE.

Considering she had just sat down on her bed and heard it, it took a few minutes of groping before her hand bumped into the anomaly and the sound rang in hear ears again. It was quiet, and really pretty.

She gave it an experimental shake, and her face widened into a smile as she identified the sound.

It was the tinkling of bells.

She slowly opened the box and her hands touched something metal, with small bells all around the edge of it. It took her a second to register it was a bracelet.

She slipped it on and gave it another shake. The little chimes of the bells on the metal was ridiculously soothing. And more than that, it worked perfectly with her hard-won ability to walk around without making a fool of herself without using that stupid cane that the adults insisted she use.

Dogs were too disruptive and Kyouya wasn't a fan of them unless they were wolves. And she had enough torment from the meaner children who thought it hilarious to take the cane she carried in her bag and hide it so she would stumble around.

They didn't understand why she couldn't see, just that it meant she was an easier target than before so long as Kyouya didn't find out.

Hence why she had to learn how to manage simply by using her hearing. Humming helped, but it made the other children and some of the meaner adults think she was scatterbrained and she wasn't allowed to do it when things got too loud. She could tap her shoes, because upon realizing what her daughter was doing her mother had started buying special ones that had metal in the soles that were mainly used for something called "tap dancing" which was really a lot of fun because she liked listening to the rhythm of the dance when her mother bought a video of it. However that was restricted to outside school, because she had to wear the same slippers as everyone else.

A bracelet, however... that was the perfect solution because she just had to give her arm a little shake to make the bells tinkle quietly without being a nuisance.

After all, the teachers couldn't yell at her for moving her arm. And she knew the other children wore jewelry, as some of the girls had loudly discussed piercing their ears.

Sakura smiled. And then she found the note.

Kyou-chan was really sweet, and his grandfather Fon was really interesting.

Fon was one of the rare people who didn't automatically treat her like an invalid the second he found out she was blind. Instead, he trained her in how to fight and become independent in her own way. Her mother had been alarmed...for all of five minutes...when she found out her child was learning how to hit people with a staff that could easily double as her cane.

Right up until she saw the smile on Sakura's face, because for the first time since losing her sight she felt completely free. She might stumble and fall, but learning how to defend herself gave her a sense of accomplishment that she had lost.

And really, the way Fon taught her to fight felt more like dancing than fighting.

_To my Little Bird_

_This is so you can see your way around and be able to locate people who need to be 'danced' to death. I better not have to send any more search parties because you got lost after this._

_Kyouya_

Sakura giggled and listened to the tinkling of the bells.

"Sakura, dinner!"

Sakura used the sound from her new bracelet to find the door...it came much easier than before since she could focus on the quiet sound they made.

And then came the real test of the bracelet, as Nana went to turn on the stereo so Sakura could navigate the room easier. After she had mastered the ability to 'see' with sound, music was always playing at just the right volume level in the home until it was time for bed. It didn't matter what genre it was (though some Sakura or Kyouya vetoed outright for being painful to listen too, like heavy metal) music would play softly in the background.

One second there was silence, the next the stereo was blaring because Nana's hand hit the wrong nob. Sakura yelped, before she heard the soothing sound of the bells on her wrist. She immediately concentrated on that sound rather than the blaring sound of the stereo.

Nana quickly turned it down, a hand to her heart. That had been a real shock.

Immediately she checked on Sakura, only to find her child shaking her right wrist so that the bells on her new bracelet consistently made noise. Once assured that the music was at a much more tolerable volume level, Nana served dinner.

Kyouya truly knew the perfect gift for Sakura. Normally she would have been sent straight to the living room where she would try to muffle the overbearing sound with pillows, and Nana would have to talk her down from a sensory overload induced panic attack.


	2. Chapter 2

Sakura was about to turn fifteen this year, and she couldn't wait. For a long time she had been in darkness, but that was okay. She was used to it by this point and had a system in place for any problem that regularly cropped up.

She didn't care if she was more or less alone in her class. So long as she had Kyou-kun she could live with it.

Even if she really didn't like the school very much. With the introduction of hormones and a new school, she found herself having to deal with the stupidity of the herbivores on more than one occasion.

From the students all the way to the teachers, those that thought to crowd together and go after her because she was an "air head" and an "easy target" in the eyes of the weaker and more stupid herbivores soon found the error of their ways.

Kyouya's Disciplinary Committee was very protective of their "Sakura-Hime", if for no other reason than for the fact she was the only person who could talk the terrifying teen down from biting someone to death. Well that and her rather strong effect of turning people into her allies purely by smiling at them.

"Sakura, time for breakfast!" said her mother loud enough to be heard over the music.

She had no idea of the flier her mother found in the mail box. If she had, she would have been very unhappy about it, for it would end up bringing her right into the path of Iemitsu Sawada and his actions.

 

_Reborn POV..._

Sakura Sawada was a slightly introverted girl who had a fascination with sound, was noted to have a rather 'air headed' personality that had likely been inherited from her mother and was the 'Princess' of the Disciplinary Committee, an admittedly well organized group of delinquents that could easily pass for a budding Familigia if their leader ever bothered to consider the idea.

In short, it was up for some major debate on whether the girl was even Decimo material. Except because of some spectacularly bad luck with the previous candidates, she was the only one alive left to take the post. Which meant he had been sent to tutor her in her inevitable duty to the Family whether she agreed or not.

He had to wonder why she wore so many bells on her though.

The file Iemitsu had of his own daughter was disturbingly thin. And there wasn't even a proper photo of the girl, as for some reason Nana had filed and successfully divorced her husband before Sakura was ten, and won sole custody of her daughter and the titles to the house and a decent sum of money to pay for the upkeep.

Apparently someone had managed to slip those particular papers into a rather large stack that Iemitsu signed without looking at before continuing on.

Lal had seen them, and had in fact been the one to send the official documents back, but according to the rumors in the Vongola and CEDEF it was assumed Iemitsu had gotten tired of pretending he actually gave a damn about his civilian family in the first place and was willing to let his now ex-wife live her own life with their daughter.

There was another rumor Reborn was more inclined to believe... that Iemitsu hadn't known he had signed the divorce and custody papers in the first place. The man was rather ignorant and it would definitely explain why he still pretended to make 'regular' visits to Namimori to visit his family.

Watching the girl walk, he heard the distinct sound of what could only be tap-dancing shoes. Though why someone would wear such things for daily wear instead of just to practice or dance with, he had no idea.

The more he observed Sakura, the more he realized there was something instinctively...off... about her. Like the fact she wore ear plugs to some of the classes, had a habit of twitching her arm to cause the bells on her bracelet to make a little bit of sound that the others ignored, or that she openly ignored everyone unless they had the black armband of the Disciplinary Committee.

All of whom would openly call her "Hime" in full view of the other students, most of whom would either avoid her or glare at a distance. The fact she wore a white armband with black trim proudly declaring her a member of the same group didn't really make sense. Unless it was the standard color for the females in the group.

(He later observed that yes, it was standard for the girls to wear white, likely to emulate their princess. Even if there were only three or four actual girls who were in the committee and only Sakura was still in high school.)

The one thing that baffled him the most was the fact that after school Sakura didn't do any actual paperwork...instead one of the boys from the committee would take the homework assignment of the day and read it out loud for her...and she would answer the questions into a computer set up with a voice recognition software. Once finished she printed two copies of it before putting them into separate folders.

Then one of the older teens made a point of walking her home, keeping a close distance to her.

It was a very efficient set up, and he fully approved considering it was more effective than anything Iemitsu bothered to create.

Clearly the Cloud kid had a handle on protecting those in his territory, and considering the girl was a sealed Sky, all they would need was one good crack in the seal and she'd have her first Guardian.

At least he wouldn't have to create a guard detail around her from scratch. And the teens looked more competent than what his last student had...which considering he was comparing a group of semi-organized delinquents to an established Familigia was pretty damn sad.

So as the girl settled into the home, which had some very pleasant classical music playing throughout the house, he waited for her mother to enter before he broke in and gave his greeting.

"Ciaossu."

Sakura stared, or at least he thought she was. Her eyes were focused on the wrong place for a few moments before they automatically adjusted to his current height.

Oddly, the way her head was angled would have put her about roughly the same area as his original height before he was cursed.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Reborn. I'm your new home tutor," he said calmly.

Nana to her credit blinked.

"You certainly came fast, considering I only called you this morning," she said suspiciously.

Another oddity. Her file firmly stated she was a bit of a ditz lost in her own little world and generally didn't pick up on the little things. Yet here she was, clearly suspicious about how quickly he arrived when she called.

The feeling that there was something else going on, something that could make or break Sakura's candidacy as Decimo was only getting worse. And he had the distinct feeling he definitely wouldn't like hearing why she felt so off.

"Well I was sent here deliberately to teach her on someone's orders," said Reborn cryptically. And, just in case this would earn some brownie points, he quickly added "And it wasn't Iemitsu. He doesn't have the authority to send me."

Nana blinked, before her face schooled itself into something a bit more neutral.

She didn't trust him, but she was willing to let him stay for the moment.

Reborn looked at the list of "rules" for the house and had to raise an eyebrow. These were some very specific and somewhat odd rules for a civilian house.

Like the one about the music... apparently it was to be played at all times, but not so high that you disturbed the neighbors. Certain genres were banned, but you were free to pick whatever you liked to listen to so long as something was playing. Another had him really wondering what was going on, because it stated outright that Sakura was to be escorted to anywhere with large crowds or loud noises, and that any homework she had to do was to be read aloud.

Which really begged the question of "WHY?" in his head that he felt needed to be answered immediately.

 

Reborn waited for Nana to be outside the house running errands before testing one of the rules when Sakura was sculpting something made out of clay in the living room.

Apparently she was a bit of an artist, because there was a lot of modeling clay in the spare bedroom which was converted into something of an artist's studio.

He'd swear he saw a clay statue of Fon in his cursed form sitting somewhere, which was surprisingly accurate down to the clothes and pacifier. It was so accurate if it had been painted the right way he'd think the Storm was in the house.

Without any warning, Reborn deliberately turned the volume up to a rather loud level for five seconds.

Sakura openly flinched, grabbed some of the pillows and immediately covered her ears the second it went up. She was openly shaking, as if the high volume pained her greatly.

Once the volume went down, Reborn waited to see her response. It took a few moments for her to verify he wasn't about to do that a second time before she looked at him.

It was the eyes that bothered him. Most people would glare at him, or at least have some expression when they stared like that. Her eyes were empty, in a way that couldn't be natural.

For one thing the room was rather bright and yet they weren't dilated at all. No one's eyes should be that unfocused.

"Please don't do that again," she asked quietly, once her breathing evened out.

Reborn said nothing, but now he was openly concerned. He levitated off the counter before making his way over to where she went back to the sculpture she was making. Which if he squinted looked disturbingly like what he used to look like before the curse. At least the form anyway... it was still too rough to tell.

He tried waving his hand in front of her eyes, as if to confirm his suspicion...she blinked but said nothing.

The next morning while she was at school, he broke into her records. And what he found had him even more suspicious.

There were certain "red flags" in her file, ones that didn't speak of anything good.

For one thing, all of her homework was allowed to be printed and her tests had to be done separately under the supervision of certain teachers. According to this, the tests would have to be spoken aloud for some unknown reason.

Another alarming fact was that there was an actual note in her file stating without any doubts on the matter that she was allowed to wearing the noisy jewelry regardless of what class she was in, and that if she was found without them on she was to be taken immediately to the Disciplinary Committee's room or to find Hibari Kyouya.

Her grades were average, or slightly above average in certain areas. Some of them had dropped, but there were notations about "difficult teachers" who apparently didn't believe in the memo or care to deal with any special treatment.

She was automatically exempt from home economics and certain physical activities like swimming. There was no notes on why, just that she was allowed to sit out of physical education if she wished.

All of this was starting to add up into something Reborn didn't like, and it was something Iemitsu _should_ have picked up on years ago.

If he was right, then it explained why Nana was a lot more attentive than her file claimed and why she had gone so far as to divorce the idiot and file for sole custody of her daughter.

It looked like he would have to bring the Storm kid in a lot sooner than he originally planned, if only to get to the bottom of the mystery.

 

Sakura barely paid any mind to the new transfer... though she could feel some sort of animosity towards her for some reason.

Her confusion was openly evident when Reborn directed her to one of the lesser used areas of the school where the committee wouldn't reach for at least five minutes.

She openly flinched when she 'saw' the bombs in his hands and reacted on instinct.

"Don't!" she said in a half-whisper, half-shout. If he set those off so close to her, it was sure to be extra painful.

"Tch, pathetic! How could an air head like you become Decimo!"

Sakura flinched, the bells on her wrist jingling merry.

"If you want to survive, you'll have to fight," said Reborn calmly.

"What? Why?" said Sakura in a horrified squeak.

"The strong rule and the weak die. That is the way of the mafia," said Reborn unconcerned.

Sakura looked in Hayato's general direction, before a strange sense of calm seemed to overcome her.

"If I beat him will he quit bringing his explosives to school?"

"You beat him, he becomes your subordinate. Loser serves the winner is also the mafia way," said Reborn.

"Then I apologize in advance, but if you're going to be using explosives then I have no choice but to dance you to death," she said in an odd tone.

"What could dancing do?" scoffed Hayato, already lighting up a cigarette.

"On second thought, maybe you could benefit from a few broken bones," she said darkly, nose twitching from the smell of his cigarette and annoyance clear in her face. She reached down to her socks... and pulled out a pipe?

Reborn sat up with interest.

The pipe in her hands elongated into what could only be a bo staff with how long it was. She pushed a button and holes slide open, almost like it was a massive flute.

The wind blew around her, almost like it was called by her weapon...it was rather strange.

And then she went after Gokudera with her staff, and Reborn's shock was open for the entire world to see.

She called that a 'dance'? It looked more like some of Fon's more insane martial arts attacks combined with staff combat from the more advanced schools.

A dance of death sounded terrifyingly appropriate, and the girl was surprisingly graceful with her moves.

Gokudera didn't stand a chance in hell. Once he admitted defeat, he eagerly agreed to serve her as her second-in-command.

"Brat, where did you learn to fight like that?" demanded Reborn. No way in hell a civilian got that good at what could only be lethal attacks without serious, intense training. Training that should have been noted in her damn files!

Sakura immediately went shy and turned her long staff back into an odd pipe that she slid into her sock.

She didn't even look in his direction before bolting, and within moments had become safely ensconced in the Receiving Room. Hayato looked confused...and definitely impressed considering she had just scaled a wall straight into an open second story window in less than a minute. Without any ropes or tools at all, but with a tree and a rather impressive jump.

Reborn was not happy. There were too many questions and not enough adding up to what little he had been given about the girl.

Outside of the fact she was introverted, a bit of an air head and had an unusual reaction to sounds, nothing was making sense. And he still didn't have confirmation of his suspicions about her!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will repeat this. Sakrademonalchemist, the one who came up with this story, has given me permission to post this story here. I know you guys are worried that I might be stealing her works, but I asked before I stated posting this story. Thank you!

Takeshi knew of Sakura Sawada. Hell, everyone knew of her, or had at least discovered her very overprotective best friend and his gang. Even if it had an official name and was considered a 'club', everyone knew the Disciplinary Committee was a gang under a polite exterior.

And Sakura was their princess. They even called her that outright in the halls!

But Takeshi knew a side to the girl that he was sure none of their classmates did.

Sakura liked baseball. Sometimes, he'd be in the cages and hear one of the machines going at an insane speed...and he'd see the girl calmly slamming home runs or dodging the balls without even a sweat. Even he would have balked at the speed she had the machine going at. Being hit with a ball would have meant an instant broken bone.

And so, he considered Sakura his unofficial rival.

However there was one tiny detail that people generally tended to forget about the girl. She had learned to hide it ridiculously well, and if she wasn't a regular customer with her mother to his dad's restaurant he wouldn't have even guessed this about her.

Sakura was completely blind.

And yet she moved like she could see, which made her ability to hit baseballs like she did absolutely amazing. But he couldn't hate her for her skills... she had worked to earn them through a lot of hard effort, and when she smiled as he read the menu and told her how the food generally tasted (because as the son of the chef he had eaten practically everything at least once)...it made his heart melt.

So yeah, it was hard not to admire the girl for her perseverance alone. Not that he would dare try anything to woo her...he wasn't suicidal and it was pretty damn obvious Hibari had long since staked his claim on her.

So when he sees the new kid trying to buddy up to her, and already calling her hime, he becomes very suspicious. It might do to have a little...chat...with the hot head before he gets into major trouble. If not with Hibari, then with Takeshi himself because he'd be damned if this idiot hurt Sakura-chan.

 

It was either a stroke of luck or perhaps just good timing, but when Takeshi waylaid Hayato before he could follow Sakura to the receiving room where she could get her homework done in peace...since she never wrote anything down in class for obvious reasons... that Reborn was not anywhere near to hear the discussion.

Hayato had a rather sour look on his face. Takeshi could care less.

"What do you want?"

"I'm here to give you an honest warning. Don't try anything funny with Sawada, or else you'll only end up hurt."

"Are you trying to say you're planning to date hime or something?" said Hayato snarling.

"No, but if you hurt Sawada I guarantee you I'll be the last person you need to worry about, especially with her condition."

Hayato suddenly looked at him seriously. It was about time this idiot paid attention, because he was overly defensive and might miss important things. Like the fact Sakura couldn't handle loud noises.

"What condition?"

"Sawada Sakura is legally blind."

Hayato suddenly stared at him like he had two heads.

"Bullshit."

"You know those bells she's always wearing? They're so she can 'see' the world around her without the cane since some of our classmates used to think it hilarious to hide it from her when she wasn't looking. Eventually she learned to do without it, but if she's around too much noise she goes into a complete panic attack and needs several minutes to calm down or she won't be able to function. She can't even go near large bodies of water because the sound carries and it overwhelms her ability to sense direction."

He only knew that because he offered to take her to the ocean during summer vacation one year, only for her mother to gently explain why Sakura couldn't swim in large bodies of water. The sensory overload was too strong for her to handle, but she could tolerate pools to a limited extent so long as she was in the shallow end with plenty of space.

Hayato almost didn't believe him...except her reaction to his bombs was a bit odd.

"What's she doing in that room then?" asked Hayato finally.

"Her homework, apparently. They have people from the committee who volunteer to read it out loud for her and she uses a computer and a microphone to 'write' down the answers and prints them. Hibari-san had it set up long before she even entered high school, though by this time most of the others think she's either faking it or that she eventually regained her sight. If you notice she never writes anything down from class."

Sakura was very, very good at hiding her condition.

"Look I'm just warning you because she's sort of a friend of mine. Even if we don't really interact that much outside class. Don't treat her like a glass doll unless she's having one of her panic attacks and whatever you do, don't piss off Hibari-san. He's pretty much staked his claim on her in middle school when some of the idiots thought her an easy target because of her condition."

Though what Takeshi didn't know was that it wasn't Kyouya who had damn near killed those idiots but Sakura herself. Kyouya merely took credit because Sakura was almost in the midst of a panic attack from the assault.

Hayato seemed to take his warning to heart, because while he did still cheerfully proclaim Sakura-chan his "princess", he kept more of a respectful distance and kept a close eye on her.

The green eyed boy did have a rather abrupt visit from Kyouya though, and after took a few days before he stopped shuddering at the rather graphic description of what the teen would do if he caught Hayato doing anything inappropriate to his Sakura-hime or didn't follow the official rules of dealing with her.

Like the "No smoking around Sakura" because it bothered her poor nose and the bombs would have to be kept away until she could learn to handle loud noises.

 

Sakura was at the restaurant again, and Takeshi made a beeline straight for the table with a smile.

"Thank you."

"Huh?" said Takeshi rather confused.

"For talking with Gokudera-kun. It seems my 'home tutor' hasn't picked up on the truth and Gokudera has calmed down considerably around me since you told him," she explained.

"Well you're a friend. I wasn't about to let him accidentally hurt you because he didn't know the truth," said Takeshi honestly.

Sakura tilted her head in confusion. Takeshi rubbed his head embarrassed.

"To be honest I've always considered you the closest thing I have to a rival since I sometimes see you playing in the cages before school. No one else in school has been able to hit as well as you do," admitted Takeshi.

"Wait... you're the one who's been over-straining his arm practicing everyday?!" said Sakura in disbelief.

"Eh?"

"I can tell just from the sound of your hits that your arm is dangerously close to being really badly hurt, and Fon-sensei said that if you don't take time off to let your muscles heal from long periods of exercise you run the risk of hurting yourself really badly. And I've heard you wince every time you hit the ball, regardless of how fast it's being thrown."

Takeshi blinked in shock.

"Really?" he said in surprise. He didn't know you could hurt yourself from over practicing.

"Ask your dad if you don't believe me," she said honestly.

Takeshi shook his head to dispel any other questions.

"So what will you have today?"

"Is there any of the blue special left? My home tutor is being an absolute nightmare and the tea is the main reason I came here today," she admitted hopefully.

The "blue special" was almost always available, especially for Sakura-chan. The tea alone did wonders for her panic attacks, according to her mother.

She was one of the rare customers who got a larger than normal flask of tea when she ordered it.

Later that night Takeshi brought up what she told him...and his father openly confirmed it. The second he heard Takeshi was feeling a lot of pain in his right arm, he pulled his son from the team until it was better, citing health reasons.

 

Sakura took step into the house...and promptly took a hit of the tea. She was going to need it.

Reborn was looking at one of her sculptures, though the one he had was one she considered a failure. She gave the one she got right to Fon on his birthday and he had been very pleased with it. And more than a little surprised considering what it was.

It was a small sculpture a little over a foot and a half of an older man with a long braid that looked remarkably like Kyouya if he grew his hair out. He had a Chinese outfit and a small pacifier to scale dangling around his neck and his stance was one from a particularly tricky and advanced martial arts move.

She had no idea what the _Karate Kid_ was, nor did she care. Odds were that it was a movie of some sort.

The thing was... Sakura had somehow managed to sculpt a perfect recreation of Fon in his adult form...not his cursed one. And there was no way she could have known what he looked like before because he was cursed long before she was born. And there were no pictures she could 'see' considering her condition.

Which begged the question of how she knew what he really looked like outside the curse.

"Where did you get this?" asked Reborn.

"I made it. That one's a failure though... I forgot the braid until after it was fired and it just looked like Kyou-chan trying to emulate his grandfather."

Which was why she wasn't going to show it off, ever.

"What about this one?" asked Reborn.

She caught the scent of clay and oils from her hand and stared at him.

"That one is unfinished."

"Why?"

"I find it interesting considering who the subject is."

Sakura rolled her eyes, or tried to. She didn't know if she was successful or not.

"Just because you have a weird curse doesn't mean I can't see your real form. It took me forever to finally get used to looking down and not up, considering the face was at the wrong height."

"You know Fon."

It explained a lot, like where she learned to fight and why she had a few sculptures of him in the house including one of his cursed form.

"Kyouya's grandfather is really nice."

"Any reason why none of these are painted?"

"Same reason I'm not allowed in the kitchen to cook alone," said Sakura without hesitation.

Besides, she had no idea if she would get the colors right anyway. Better to leave them alone.

Reborn was giving her a strange look.

Sakura went past him to get some batteries from the drawers. She had gotten some new audiobooks to listen to and she wanted to enjoy them before he tried to stir up chaos again.

She might not be able to read but she could still enjoy books.

She was rather annoyed by the heavy staring Reborn was giving her.

"What?" she demanded.

Feeling the weight on the bed, she scrunched up closer to herself. Only two people other than her were allowed to be that close in her room and he was not them.

She felt something wave in front of her and huffed in annoyance.

"How many fingers am I holding up? And don't shake your wrist or ankles."

"I don't know, and quite frankly I'm surprised it took you this long to notice," said Sakura crossly.

Reborn's voice was full of disbelief, as if he had trouble processing this.

"You're completely blind."

"I have been since I was five. They don't know what caused it, only that it's apparently because of some trauma. According to the doctor's it's psychosomatic in nature," said Sakura matter of fact.

"How was this not in the file I was given?"

"Because Mama got angry when she realized it happened right after a visit from someone she used to be in love with, and it didn't take a genius to figure out he caused it, since the trauma was bad enough I blocked it out completely. She made sure I was with Kyou-chan when he tried to visit, since she didn't want to make it worse. That's when I met Fon-sensei."

This was big. Very big. Reborn had never heard of a _blind_ mafia boss, and this is one thing he couldn't train her out of. He didn't even know where to start!

Fon had clearly trained her to hide the fact she was completely blind, and it was amazing she was able to function like she did. He hadn't even realized she couldn't see until he started putting the clues together.

"In any case why don't you relax tonight. I have some calls to make."

"You're going to tell that idiot who donated the other half of my genes about the fact he messed up big time."

"Close. I'm going to be telling off the idiots who caused this mess and we'll figure out how to go from there."

Timoteo had some damn explaining to do!


	4. Chapter 4

Reborn had some hope of Sakura at least surviving being the Decimo Vongola long enough to pass on the title to her children when the science teacher decided to hone in on her because of her test. Apparently he was one of the few who looked down on her because of the 'special treatment' she received, up to and including the private tests overseen by the other teachers.

Considering her condition, her Cloud went to extraordinary lengths to give his girlfriend something close to a normal school life.

He was still surprised she managed to snag the Rain kid on her own, considering she got him banned from the team for a full month. From what he saw the boy was baseball obsessed, so he shouldn't have taken the news lying down.

And yet there wasn't a hint of anger towards whatever she did to get him off the team for the next few games. More like respect and admiration.

Soon after Hayato had that encounter with the Cloud, the Rain started slowly drifting towards the girl. Or perhaps he had always been there waiting in the eaves for this chance, and didn't realize it. From the limited interactions between them it was clear he was fully aware of her condition and went out of his way to cater to the "rules" without being told.

He was likely the one who told Hayato, considering the Storm had looked like he was torn between treating his Sky like glass and idolizing her.

Reborn openly frowned in disapproval when the teacher manhandled her and confiscated the bells. Now that he knew the truth, he had to take things a little differently in how he trained her.

Hayato wasn't the only one who stood up in anger...Takeshi did as well and he was frowning strongly.

Two of the girls looked really upset.

"If you don't want to be expelled you useless girl, then find the time capsule!" sneered the teacher.

Sakura frowned at him, but slowly managed to leave the classroom.

Reborn followed at a distance and overheard her conversation.

"Any idea where Hibari-san is?" asked Takeshi.

Sakura's dazed expression brightened, before she pointed upward.

"Taking one of his naps on the roof, huh? Hup."

"Eep!" yelped Sakura as Takeshi picked her up princess-style.

"Baseball idiot, what are you up to?" said Hayato growling.

"He crossed the line. Everyone knows Sakura-chan treasures those bells, and it's in the rules. If anyone can get rid of that idiot and get them back it's Hibari-san. Besides, I'm sure he'll be very unhappy to hear what the man did, manhandling her like that..." said Takeshi grinning.

Sakura was used to being carried like this, but not by Takeshi.

He was able to walk up to the roof carrying Sakura. The second the door opened Hibari was practically on them.

"Why are you outside class, little bird?" demanded Hibari...before his eyes fell on something that was missing. "Where are your bells?"

"Nezu-sensei took them...after he practically yanked her out of her seat," said Takeshi, sitting her down.

Hibari looked positively murderous.

"Really..." he growled.

"That jackass said if she didn't want to get expelled she had to find some time capsule from fifteen years ago."

Hibari definitely looked pissed now.

"That's impossible. There are no records of a time capsule being buried fifteen years ago, and I have the locations of all the ones buried," said Hibari.

"So he set them up," said Takeshi.

"You lot stay here and guard hime. I'll deal with that idiot," said Hibari darkly.

 

_Ten minutes later..._

"AIIIE! MERCY!" screamed Nezu ten minutes later.

"For attempting to harm Sakura-hime and disrupting the peace of the school I will bite you to death," snarled Hibari.

"Hibari-san, please stop!" pleaded the principal.

"Unless you want to defend a useless man who sets up his students with an impossible task and manhandles his students to confiscate personal property, back off."

"What."

Hibari's hand lashed out...snagging something in Nezu's pocket. The familiar tinkling of bells was heard...and there was no doubt who the owner was, because Sakura's bracelet had an inscription along with a set of phone numbers if found.

"And let's not forget the multiple complaints Sakura has made about the man belittling his students on a regular basis and humiliating them," said Hibari.

"Why was this not brought to my attention sooner?" said the principal.

"Sakura didn't think the man was important enough to bite to death, and was simply waiting until she had enough evidence to ban him permanently as an educational professional," said Hibari immediately.

"This is ridiculous! That delusional girl should be expelled!" demanded Nezu.

"Delusional?" said Hibari dangerously.

The principal winced.

"I'm afraid that her case against you is simply much stronger than the one you have against her. Especially since it's abundantly clear you believe her condition is a delusion," he said tiredly. "Douhachiro-san, you are hereby fired and if you do not return all the items you took from Sawada-san I will be forced to have you arrested...after Hibari-san is done with you."

Hibari smirked evilly, and Nezu damn near pissed himself.

_On the roof..._

"That was clever of you, to get the Cloud kid to deal with the situation," said Reborn, sipping his coffee.

"Not really. Kyouya has been wanting to have a word with that teacher for months, but held back until we had a stronger case against him to bar him from teaching ever again. He's one of the few who refused to let me take my tests in another room where I can have the questions read out loud so I could answer. He thinks my condition is something I made up to get attention," said Sakura, sipping the coffee Reborn had shared with them. "So how did your talk with whoever you were trying to contact go?"

She preferred tea, but it was alright.

Reborn paused, noticing the other boys listening in to the conversation.

"I haven't told them yet. Mainly because I'm still trying to assess whether or not you're still a viable candidate for Decimo despite your condition. Considering you've learned to hide it so well and have been able to function without sight, you're still a candidate."

"And if she wasn't?" asked Takeshi.

"Then she might become a placeholder until she has children with the right Flame type. A caged bird, in other words."

Sakura winced. That was the comparison Kyouya had given to Fon when he asked why he had taken such an interest in her when she was eight.

He called her a "caged chick that had it's wings clipped too young and would never know the sky...and that the cage had been covered up to take away the light". Kyouya loved small animals, especially birds, so when he first met her and had that comparison in his head he instantly knew he had to protect her.

Fon called it his "Guardian instincts". Even sealed Kyouya had sensed she had Sky Flames strong enough to harmonize with him...and it didn't hurt she had instinctively recognized him as "safe" despite his reputation.

Needless to say Kyouya's family was beyond pleased he had found a Sky so easily...even more so when they realized the two were well on the way to becoming childhood sweethearts.

Kyouya stalked up to the roof, saw Sakura and headed straight for her. Without a word, he calmly slipped the bracelet back on her wrist before sitting down behind her and leaning against her back to resume his nap.

She giggled but said nothing. Reborn smirked.

It was abundantly clear the Cloud had staked his claim and would fight to defend his Sky, and that was before his Guardian instincts came into play.

 

The day Lambo showed up, Sakura was in the middle of sculpting something random for fun.

Reborn was reading some random paper from Italy, as there were unofficially designated quiet times purely to relax. The only sound came from the music on the stereo, and this week was something classical Reborn favored when he was trying to unwind.

Being the center of chaos was something he enjoyed...but these peaceful times were nice too. So much so he was very reluctant to disturb them.

Then the doorbell rang, and Nana opened the door. Except the one doing the ringing was too short to be seen right away and slipped into the house when she was trying to find the culprit.

The house was soon disturbed by the sound of a loud child, what could only be explosions, and the yelp of her daughter.

That was quickly followed by Reborn telling someone off and checking on Sakura, since she was still unused to loud noises.

Nana thought to find out what happened... until Sakura came down with a thoroughly chastised little boy with fluffy hair and a face that said volumes of how upset he was.

Seeing her daughter calmly get a wash rag and some warm water, she left her to it while she continued with dinner.

_With Sakura..._

Lambo was a little angel if you handled him right. The poor kid was practically starving for attention and latched on to positive affection and reinforcement. A little coaxing revealed he was an orphan... something Reborn confirmed, along with the fact he was from a minor Familigia in Italy.

Sakura got on the boy's good side with a single move...she gave him an entire bowl of fresh grapes and let him sit in her lap while he ate them.

It quickly became apparent that Lambo was firmly smitten with her, to the point he would be nearly impossible to get rid of without upsetting Sakura in the process. She always wanted a little brother to spoil.

And then the Ten Year Bazooka came out, and things got complicated and weird.

Fifteen-year-old Lambo was a looker...but it was the cryptic message he gave Reborn that had her on edge.

"What did he mean when he said I needed to be around stronger Flames before my sight returns?" she asked baffled. Being called Sakura-onee-sama was nice, especially the hug when Lambo recognized her.

"I have an idea that I hope I'm right about," said Reborn cryptically.

From the way Lambo said that, and the fact he was starting to feel the effects of a slow harmonization, it was possible that Sakura's sight wasn't lost...so much as it was _buried_ under the seal.

Her Flames were a mere ember of what they could be, since he couldn't risk using his bullets to force her Dying Will Flames out like he normally would.

Sakura's Dying Will Flame was like that of a deep, still lake. In the bottom was her sight, but there were tiny openings so that the ability to see could vent and still exist. With every connection to the other six Flame types, a net was slowly being woven around the 'core' that had been sealed. The stronger the Flame and the connection to the person, the more 'weaving' it created.

Sakura herself stood above the lake waters, observing from the cage around her caused by her blindness. Kyouya had at least given her a chance to see around her, but she was trapped and unable to access her Flames on her own.

With enough bonds, perhaps she could find a way to 'haul' her sight out of the lake and free herself.

Reborn had some serious work to do. He couldn't let this girl go without her sight if she was to be the next Decimo of the Vongola family.

"So Lambo is going to be staying with us?" said Sakura hopefully.

"The pest seems to like you, and he'll only get into mischief if left alone," said Reborn. "Keep him far from me."

"Lambo-kun, do you like arts and crafts?" said Sakura cheerfully.

It didn't take much encouragement to get the five-year-old Bovino to join in on her sculpting time...though in his case it was more he was allowed to make a controlled mess with dirt and a little water on a plastic mat. Needless to say the little boy had a lot of fun being allowed to make a mess and Reborn got some of his peaceful afternoon back.

 

Reborn had a sudden ominous feeling when he heard Bianchi had evidently not given up on him and after a string of particularly pathetic boyfriends was heading to Japan specifically to see him again.

Considering she had made things...interesting...for Dino when he was training the idiot, he had the suspicion the woman would try again with Sakura.

Odds were Sakura would smell the poison and avoid it, but he would rather avoid having Bianchi end up dead because she failed to realize the girl was even better protected than Dino had been.

Dino had decent security, but it was rather lax considering he had to work his ass off to be able to pay his bodyguards. As such there were times they had to rely on half-assed volunteers to keep him safe.

Not that he was ever safe when Reborn was teaching him.

Sakura, on the other hand, practically had the Disciplinary Committee and their leader wrapped around her little finger. Most of whom were far better trained than Dino's men, mostly to survive Kyouya's rampages when bored.

You either learned how to fight and not get your head caved in, or you moved to another town to get far, far away from Kyouya. It said a lot that the majority ended up learning to fight and survive rather than move and hope Kyouya didn't come after them.

Though any fool could see the majority of that was because of Sakura herself. No one wanted to disappoint their "princess", and she was always the one to patch them up after.

So if Bianchi tried to target Sakura in a misguided effort to convince Reborn to go back with her...

He winced, as there was no way that would end well for the Poison Scorpion. Never mind what sort of trauma it would likely inflict on her younger half-brother.

Who knew...with any luck perhaps Sakura could work her own brand of magic on the teen and get Bianchi on her side, rather than trying to kill her.


	5. Chapter 5

Bianchi's attempts to poison Sakura to death were meet with dismal failure. For one thing her nose was sharper than the Poison Scorpion anticipated, so she managed to knock away whatever Bianchi was trying to use before it could be deployed.

And of course there was the time that the girls were planning to make cakes for the boys in Home Economics... Bianchi tried to intercept Sakura's offering, only to learn that the girl was automatically exempt from the class.

The only thing she managed to do was traumatize her younger brother, who immediately fled to the same girl she was trying to kill.

The last and final attempt failed purely because of when she tried it.

In short Hibari was less than happy to have an older carnivore after his little bird, and made it known...in spades. Gokudera was torn between pitying his sister and considering cheering the violent cloud on.

And then Bianchi was told something that made her feel like she had been punched in the gut.

She had no idea the girl she was trying to kill was blind. She had been openly trying to kill a handicapped child who had to grow up with the knowledge her own father had robbed her of sight, and had been briefly tormented until she found a Cloud who took a shine to her.

That alone might have at least calmed Bianchi's attempts down... but it was Sakura herself who managed to win her over to her side as a member of her growing Family.

Bianchi was a firm believer of love conquering anything, including poisons. In fact she had a penchant for reading romance novels that had that as a theme all the time.

Sakura was of a similar, if less high strung mindset. She was a firm believer that maybe her love for "Kyou-chan" and her growing number of Knights (she didn't use the term Guardians, but it was heavily implied) would one day help her see again.

Reborn was relieved when Bianchi quit it with the poison around Sakura... she had enough trouble cooking without help, she didn't need to worry about poison on top of it. Besides, watching Hayato freak out when Bianchi took an older sister role to the younger girl was hilarious.

 

Sakura and Reborn were walking to the school when they were confronted by a very strange girl.

"Can I hug your baby brother?" she asked, almost excitedly.

"Um... he's not my brother. We're not even remotely related. And if you want to hug him, why don't you ask him instead," said Sakura slowly.

The girl immediately turned to Reborn.

"No."

She pouted.

"Still, he must be such a good little brother to walk his sister to school every day!"

Sakura frowned the second she heard the familiar tone in the girl's voice.

"You're not one of those idiots who openly believes I'm mentally handicapped... are you?" she asked with suspicion.

She didn't need to see to know the girl openly winced.

"Why did that stupid rumor get started anyway? I'm blind, not mentally impaired," she complained.

"To be fair, most generally walk around with a cane or a dog," said Reborn.

"But that just means people give me their fake pity and act like I'm an invalid! Do you have any idea how irritating that is?" said Sakura pouting.

If there was one thing she hated, it was the false sympathy and pity she got when people who had just met her found out she was blind. It really annoyed the hell out of her when they started treating her like glass, as if she couldn't do simple tasks like opening a freaking door or getting a chair.

Which had only inspired her to redouble her efforts to master the 'echo-location' trick and why she wore bells all the time. Needless to say Fon used it as a way to inspire her to train harder in how to fight.

The less people knew about her condition, the happier she was.

You could practically tell the girl was openly ashamed at being busted like that.

"So if he's not your brother, then why does he walk with you to school every day?"

Sakura decided to play on the girl's guilt and hopefully shame her into leaving her the hell alone.

Between the boys and the girls, the ones who inflicted the majority of her trauma were the girls. They could do damage without leaving a single physical trace that Kyouya could use against them. Most were too scared of her "boyfriend" to bother her now, but it used to be a very unpleasant problem.

Ergo, she didn't want to open up trouble she didn't need.

"He's someone who suffers from dwarfism. Despite his looks, he's actually over thirty," said Sakura, lying with ease.

Reborn gave her the oddest look, too bad she couldn't see it.

"Dwarfism?"

"Little person? I believe the slang is 'midget', which is rather derogatory," said Sakura.

"No way!"

"He's also my home tutor," said Sakura.

It took a bit of convincing, but while they didn't get rid of Miura Haru at least she wasn't about to draw all the wrong conclusions.

"Where did you come up with that one?" said Reborn. He dealt with the misconception he was a toddler for years, all of them had. He'd never heard someone come up with a lie that was so readily accepted and still got him treated as a proper adult!

"I got it from Fon. Who picked it up from someone named Verde. Apparently it's how they're able to order things not available to 'children' in the civilian world, and he shared it with Fon," said Sakura immediately.

Reborn paused. Okay, he could believe that Verde would come up with that just to get things done legally in the civilian side when proxies were unavailable and shared it with Fon at some point.

"You know Verde?"

"Not really. Fon's only mentioned him once or twice...something about seeing if he couldn't come up with a device I could wear on my ear like a headset that could scan 2-D objects like books so it could read them for me without causing a disruption. Audiobooks are great, but I would like to be able to 'read' things without having to ask someone to speak the words out loud."

"...Is that why there's so many 'language' audiobooks in your room?" asked Reborn.

"They're usually on sale," admitted Sakura.

"Well now I know what we'll be working on for a while," said Reborn cheerfully. "I happen to know a few languages myself."

"I'm good at English, Italian, Chinese, French, Spanish and German. My Gaelic still needs work, as does my Russian. I'm passable at Latin."

"I can understand all but the last two. Where did you pick up those from? And why?"

"Because the Prince insisted that any proper princess should know the more obscure languages, and Mammon commented on how often people wrote legal contracts in Latin. Besides, most of the languages from Europe are loosely based on Latin anyway."

He'd conceded that readily, though it was odd she learned something like Gaelic in the first place. Then what she said registered.

"Who's the 'prince'?"

"Someone who occasionally visits to eat sushi at Takesushi. Considering how often I need their tea, we ran into each other and eventually he decided he liked me enough to help me learn more languages, and quickly roped in his partner as well. She was rather disgruntled I figured out her gender though, and she has a really nice frog."

Belphegor was rather sweet, if he decided he liked you. And Mammon was sarcastic and a bit greedy, but actually nice if you got on her good side. Then again Sakura always made sure to pay for the woman's strawberry milk that she liked so much, and even let them mooch off her mother's cooking so that was a big plus.

Nana wasn't too fond of Belphegor for some reason, but put up with it because he was nice to her daughter and didn't treat her like a glass doll that could break any minute.

"Actually the prince is overdue for another visit here. I wonder what's keeping him?" said Sakura to herself.

Reborn wouldn't hear the conversation between her and this "Prince", but he did know that it was spoken primarily in Italian which made him suspect someone from one of the Familigias happened to stumble upon Sakura. Likely an heir, or a spare heir anyway.

If he had any idea who she was actually talking to, he would have had to reevaluate her ability as a boss.

Too bad he was completely unaware that Sakura had made friends with the Storm and Mist Officers of the Varia of all people... and through them was tentatively associated with their Sun and Rain.

 

_In Varia headquarters..._

"Shishishi... The boss was revived recently. He's currently in recovery and licking his wounds," said Belphegor on the phone.

_"That's great! I know you were all really upset when he was 'iced', and it sounds like things are getting really interesting over there!"_ said Sakura. _"I've had some new developments of my own... I've recently gotten a very weird home tutor and some 'knights'."_

"Sounds like we're both having fun, Principessa."

_"He's really strange though. Keeps insisting he's the world's greatest hit man and yet it took him over a month to realize I'm blind,"_ said Sakura in open amusement.

Belphegor paused. There was no way she was talking about Reborn of all people, was she? Why would someone as innocent as Sakura-chan end up with Reborn as a home tutor?

He only taught potential heirs to Familigias who could afford their fees. As far as he knew, she was firmly a civilian.

"Shishishi...sounds like you're having fun."

_"It's...interesting. I have some new sculptures if you're interested next time you come to town. I even have that one of Mammon finished, but I was a bit leery of sending it via the post considering how hectic you mentioned your work was."_

"I'll be sure to tell Mammy that it's done. If nothing else we might visit within a few months, if the Boss allows it."

Or they'd ask for a brief vacation if they had to.

_"Well I hope your boss gets better. I could try sending some of your favorite sushi through express mail so you don't go too long without it."_

"Shishishi... and that's why I like you best, Principessa."

The girl might be a civilian, but she was practically a princess in her own right despite being from a middle class neighborhood. Even the peasants around her acknowledged that, as did the rather territorial Cloud brat who was her Prince.

Though it had taken a really amusing fight with the Cloud before Belphegor acknowledged the boy's claim on the Princess. The boy had amassed a very impressive number of retainers and used them to defend the Principessa.

Though Hibari didn't deserve the title (or want to be called as such) of Prince, Belphegor acknowledged the teen as his equal in rank.

After all, only a true prince deserved a princess like Sakura-chan.

Belphegor finished the call, feeling happy the Princess had noticed he was overdue for his visit and cared enough to call and ask if anything was wrong.

Seeing Mammon, he smirked.

"The princess said that the sculpture she made of you and Fantasma is done, but she didn't trust our post system since the mansion is so 'rowdy'," said Belphegor. Mammon perked up at that.

It had been strange, staying put long enough for Sakura to get a good 'feel' of what she looked like, but she had seen the girl's work. The bust she did of Belphegor was spot on, right down to the crown and she even got his smirk perfectly. Naturally he was very pleased with the result, even if it had taken a lot of bribery for him to sit still long enough.

It was very hard to believe that the girl was genuinely blind...

 

Shamal was in a bit of a bind... he was in a lot of trouble with a queen and he could only hope Reborn had someplace he could hide until the heat died down.

Fortunately his friend was acting as a tutor, which meant he was staying in one place for a while.

And then he caught sight of the kid Reborn was currently training... the girl was going to be a total looker in a few years.

She had the whole "princess" feel down to a tee, even though she wasn't raised in any castle. Hell, she even had retainers around her!

"Ciaossu, Shamal," said Reborn sitting on a hammock while the girl played with a kid who looked like he was from the Bovino Familigia. She was teaching him how to play cat's cradle.

The girl turned to face him...and he could tell right away she was completely blind. Her eyes weren't focusing at all despite being in direct sunlight.

"Who's this?" she asked.

"This is an old friend of mine named Shamal, and he's a doctor," said Reborn.

The girl got up and somehow managed to know exactly where he was despite her condition. She even held out her hand for him.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Shamal-san," she said.

Shamal firmly shook it, and was pleased she wasn't some weak wall flower like he thought.

"It's nice to meet you too, little lady," he said grinning.

"So what did you do this time?" asked Reborn.

"I may or may not have pissed off a Queen," said Shamal in Italian. No need to air out the dirty laundry in front of this little girl.

Reborn smirked.

"Well you had best keep your hands to yourself around Sakura-chan here... her boyfriend will almost certainly take offense if you try any of your usual tricks, and he's highly protective of her," he replied in the same language.

"How bad?"

"He's a Cloud who's organized almost the entire city's worth of delinquents into a close approximation of a Family. What do you think?" deadpanned Reborn. Shamal winced at the idea.

Yeah, he could live with not flirting with the girl if it meant avoiding crossing that. Besides, there were plenty of ladies for him to enjoy around here anyway.

"So which Familigia is she with, and do they know about..."

"It's the Vongola, and I haven't told them yet," said Reborn.

Shamal almost choked. The Vongola didn't know their last remaining heir was blind? This was going to cause a major stir the second it got out!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a double update for those who were wondering when I would post again. Sorry it was so late. I can finally post again on my laptop as I got a new battery for it.
> 
> Once again, sakurademonalchemist is the original author of this story. They are just letting me post some of their stories on here.

Hibari was having a...mild...panic attack, though you would have to actually know him well to notice. The reason was simple enough as to why.

Sakura's birthday was in a week and he had no idea what he was going to get her this year. The entire bell theme had more or less run it's course, and while he could get her an animal the simple fact was that he didn't want to compete for her affections.

His second-in-command found it rather amusing, but was smart enough to keep his silence on the matter.

Knowing her "knights" as she had jokingly called the two lackeys who followed her around in place of his own people, they had no idea her birthday was coming up.

And then he spotted something that gave him an idea of what to get her. It was a comic book one of the lackeys in the committee had been reading, and there was little wonder why.

One of the characters on the cover looked a hell of a lot like Sakura did, even down to the hair style and the name. About the only thing off was the eye color.

It took little time to look up this "Tsubasa Chronicles", and a plan formed in his head. A smirk curled onto his face as he immediately started looking up a few things.

This was going to be a fun surprise for his little bird.

 

_With Takeshi and Gokudera..._

"Wait... so it's the Hime's birthday next week?" said Hayato in shock.

"Yeah. I only remembered because her mom brought her to the restaurant a few times to celebrate, usually with Hibari."

"So how old is she going to be?"

"I think she's turning fifteen this year," said Takeshi.

Hayato looked panicked. He had no idea what to get her for her birthday...until he over heard some girls talking and spotted a violin case. Inspiration struck, as he definitely remembered Sakura having a lot of classical music in her home...that was one of the more consistent genres he always heard playing in the house.

It had initially confused him why there was always music playing until he found out she was blind and used sound to "see" for her. Then it made total sense.

He would have to find out what her favorite piano songs were and brush up on some skills he hadn't bothered with in some time. If he remembered right, there was a piano in one of the music rooms.

Takeshi was of a similar mind, though in his case it was more to do with finding a random manga in the restaurant left behind by one of the female patrons. It was an older one long since completed, but the main character looked a lot like Sakura, except her eyes were the wrong color. They even had the same first name!

The second he realized her birthday was less than a week away (and after getting some accidental inspiration) Takeshi had gone online and found a plush that he was sure she'd like. He knew she was a fan of animals, especially birds.

"Wonder what Hibari is getting her," said Takeshi.

"Who cares? I bet it's more bells though."

"Ciaossu."

The two of them barely reacted to Reborn's sudden appearance.

"You know my birthday is in five days," he said by way of conversation.

"Bianchi will be happy," deadpanned Gokudera.

"How weird, your birthday is right before Sakura-chan's," said Takeshi.

Well there went his plan to hijack her birthday. Damn.

"I'm sure Sakura wouldn't mind sharing..." said Takeshi not noticing Reborn's annoyed expression.

"So what are you two getting her?" asked Reborn. If only to have an idea of what not to get.

"I'm going to be borrowing the music room and get some sheet music," said Hayato. Odds are Hibari would allow it once he heard why.

"A plush toy from a really old series that has a character who looks a lot like a younger version of Sakura, with the same first name," said Takeshi.

"Got it."

He'd just get her something she could use with her sculpting, like some oddly shaped sea shells or beads. A sudden idea occurred to him that had his inner sense of chaos grinning with anticipation.

He could get her one of those shells that sounded like the ocean, preferably with something living inside it and hear her squeak with surprise. That ought to be fun.

 

"Eh? So Reborn's birthday is the day before mine?" said Sakura in surprise.

"Yes," said Bianchi. She was one of the few who knew it.

"Well at least this means I can give him that sculpture I made as a present. Are you any good at painting?" she asked.

"Why?"

"Well I can never paint mine for obvious reasons, and this way you won't accidentally poison him so he can properly enjoy his birthday. Love overcomes a lot of things, but I don't think you'd want to put him into the hospital from food poisoning now would you?"

Bianchi blinked.

"Where's the sculpture?" she asked.

Sakura went into the side room where she kept them, and brought out two.

"You can pick either one, though I only finished this one last week. Reborn was nice enough to pose for the slightly bigger one, though I think he'd be most surprised by this one," she said, patting the one that looked more like an adult version of what she thought the "baby" would look like, even with the pacifier around his neck.

Bianchi blinked, before she smiled and tapped the 'adult' version.

"I'm not very good at painting though."

"Well you can at least help out by holding the colors for me while I do it. As you can tell I've got a pretty steady hand, I just need help with the color coordination."

"Fair enough."

Bianchi watched in fascination as Sakura painted the sculpture with whatever Bianchi's hand guided her too. Between the two of them it was done fairly quickly and with a neat hand. It really looked like an older version of Reborn too, and Bianchi was so impressed she helped paint the "baby" version complete with the mini-Leon on the hat.

Sakura discreetly took it to the little kiln that her mother had set up outside (it was firmly off limits to everyone but Sakura) and put them in. She knew how long to back the clay, but she had never really painted any of them before.

Once they were done and properly cooled, even Bianchi had to admit they were really well done. For one thing, the "to-scale" version of Reborn was so dead on that if she didn't know any better she would swear he was right there.

"Do you mind if I keep this?" asked Bianchi.

"Sure!" said Sakura. It was nice to have her work appreciated, even if it was mostly to kill time.

"What are you two up to?" asked Nana smiling. Bianchi was a bit...off... though thankfully not in the same way as Belphegor, but she seemed to fit into a "big sister" role around Sakura. Besides, it had been some time since her daughter was this happy to be around others she barely knew.

Reborn, for all the headaches he brought, was good for her.

"Reborn's birthday is a day before mine. So we could probably celebrate his around ten and then mine around midnight or something," suggested Sakura. That way they were technically sharing a birthday but at least it would be celebrated on the actual date.

"That sounds like a lot of fun! I'll start coordinating with Tsuyoshi for the food, and we can even order those cakes you like so much!" said Nana happily. Trust her daughter to come up with a genius solution to a tricky problem of combining the two birthdays into one.

Bianchi definitely seemed to approve of the idea and was already sending out texts to everyone but Reborn. This would be a nice surprise for him.

Of course she had to get Nana's help to figure out what to get Sakura. It wouldn't do for her to be forgotten, and her cooking was out since the girl could sniff out any poison.

She had plenty of bell jewelry and no perfumes or make up. Apparently it made her sneeze a lot. And dresses really weren't her thing, since the girl already had so many of them.

What to do, what to do...

 

"Repeat that. I thought I heard something stupid," said Hibari, glaring at Hayato.

"I overheard Hime's birthday is in a few days and I need help with the music selection. I've got some skill with a piano, but no idea what to play," said Hayato.

Even if he had to work out a few kinks before he even though to approach Hibari...namely the past feelings Bianchi caused with her damn poison cooking on their father's orders. Once he got that out, he should be good to go.

Hibari stared at him, with an unreadable expression on his face. Then, to the relief of Hayato he pulled out not his familiar tonfas, but a list of songs that were very useful in calming down Sakura. Some of which were very easily converted to piano.

"You better not screw up, puppy knight," said Hibari flatly.

At this point, he could tolerate his designated nickname from Hibari. It was less annoying than the "Octopus head" that jerk Ryohei gave him.

He was still banned from being in Sakura's presence until he learned some volume control. The boxing idiot had a bad habit of using his "outdoor" voice which was more appropriate for talking over loud concerts than an "indoor" voice, which she could tolerate.

The verbal tick they could live with, the loud exclamations that bothered Hime so much, they could live without. It was positively headache inducing.

"I at least have some pride in my ability to play," said Hayato. Now to track down that sheet music, or at least find some videos on Youtube...

The "puppy knight" as Hibari liked to think of him, if only because he acted like an over-eager puppy who would follow Sakura-hime around and actually bite anyone stupid enough to come after her (hence why he tolerated the dog's presence), left and Hibari looked into the rest of the drawer to the two almost messily wrapped presents inside.

Give him a mob to break up and bite to death, and he would do it with gusto and a smile on his face.

Ask him to wrap a simple square box in wrapping paper and suddenly you had the most uncoordinated human on the planet who's only ability to the act was that it was more or less covered with plenty of tape holding it shut.

Needless to say this amused Fon greatly when he found that out, because Hibari only wrapped presents for Sakura, who couldn't see how badly it was done anyway.

It also served as a reminder that regardless of how he behaved around others, Hibari was most certainly not perfect at everything he did. It comforted the lackeys to know he couldn't wrap a simple box.

Hibari remembered the odd text he got earlier from Nana. Something about a joint birthday party, because apparently the fake baby had his the day before, so they were going to celebrate it a little later than normal so both Reborn and Sakura could share the party without making it incredibly awkward.

Considering his suspicions about Reborn and how he was possibly related to Fon in some way, he had the feeling the "baby" would love the minor present Hibari was going to give him.

Sakura's ability to convince people was a powerful thing. So powerful in fact that she convinced the annoying carnivore to dress up in absurd outfits, especially on Halloween.

Including one memorable occasion when he looked like a particularly ridiculous and adorable little red dragon, which had made it rather hard to look and him and not laugh his ass off.

Hibari had extras. His mother had nearly died laughing herself when she saw what Fon was wearing.

 

Reborn got his dose of chaos from an obscure Vongola tradition that amused Sakura to an extent, which made it "okay".

He was rather pleased with the gifts, even if he was taken aback by the sculpture that was a dead ringer for his true form, down to the tiny gun in "his" hands and the half-tilted fedora on 'his' head.

There was no way he wasn't keeping this.

Haru's gift was cute, in a childish way, but mafioso didn't wear white. It was too hard to get the bloodstains out.

What really made his day though was the "gift" Hibari presented him. Two seconds after he realized what he was looking at, a shared smirk passed between the two.

"Sakura?" he asked.

"Sakura and a mother all too willing to find matching costumes."

Reborn openly cackled. Fon looked ridiculously cute, especially with the "fluff ball" known as Sakura holding him like a teddy bear.

To his disappointment he didn't scare her with the shell that still had a living creature in it (he had hoped she wouldn't notice it with the chaos, but apparently she did) but it was still one of the more entertaining parties he had in a long time.

And shortly after midnight, the other half of the party started and it was centered around Sakura. He had to admit splitting the party into two halves by holding it later at night was pretty smart.

Sakura was very happy with the plush dolls Takeshi and Hibari got her...both ironically had the same inspiration for gifts, even if the series were different. To be fair, the older one inspired the series Hibari used.

Takeshi had given Sakura a "Kero-chan" plush and an accurate replica of the "Key of Sealing" from the old _Card Captor Sakura_ series. He would have gotten the cards as well, but considering she couldn't see them it wouldn't have been worth it.

Hibari had given her the "Mokona Modoki" from _Xxxholic_ and . There was a black Mokona with a blue jewel and a white Mokona with a bright red jewel.

All three of them were ridiculously fluffy.

It was a very fun and entertaining party... of course Hayato had to wait before he could give Sakura his gift.

 

_After school..._

Sakura knew she was in the music room from the sound alone, but didn't know why Hayato brought her here. She sat down on the bench next to him...and to her surprise she heard the rustling of what sounded like sheet paper and the opening of the keyboard.

For a moment there was nothing...and then the sound of piano music filled the air. Whoever was doing it was really good, there were almost no missed notes.

It took her a few moments to realize Hayato was playing the piano with a skill she didn't know he had.

"Happy birthday, Sakura-hime."

She smiled and leaned against him, just listening to his playing. This was a really nice present, because she had no idea he was this good.

Good thing he cleared it with Hibari first, because Hayato noticed the slightly jealous look the teen was giving him from the doorway.


	7. Chapter 7

Sakura didn't need to be told who was coming when she went to see Kyouya. Only one person made him this irritable and that was his grandfather Fon.

Sakura hid a smile... Fon was a lot more fun than Reborn to have around and he didn't mind if Sakura dressed him up in matching costumes. Reborn was too mean to ask him to do it.

"Fon is bringing his current student with him. Apparently he needs someplace to take her since she was given a rather dangerous ability from her grandparents and they cut him off from helping her directly."

Which meant he couldn't just leave her with Hibari, since they were related.

Sakura tilted her head.

"What about having an older apprentice train her until she's ready to learn the more advanced forms?"

"Why do you think he's coming here? He'll probably want you to be her trainer and let her have an actual child hood," said Hibari.

Oh, so that's why he was irritated. He didn't like sharing her at all, but he put up with it because it made her happy. He barely tolerated Lambo at all.

"Well at least I can share some of the new costumes Mama got for us," said Sakura.

"Why not share them with Reborn?"

"Too scary and I don't know if he'd be willing to join in."

Hibari openly snorted. He'd seen that fake baby dress up in ridiculous things before, multiple times. Most of the costumes were from random anime series or books, and rarely anything too humiliating. After all, no one wanted to hear Sakura cry because some idiot made fun of what she was wearing.

Fon was smiling as he lead I-Pin directly to the house. Considering how near sighted she was, she could benefit greatly from Sakura's little tricks of getting around without sight.

At least until she was old enough to wear contacts anyway.

Lichi hit the doorbell and it took Nana a few seconds to look down.

"Fon-san! And this must be your apprentice Kyouya mentioned. Come on in! Sakura should be coming home soon with her little friends, and we're having Thai tonight."

Fon smiled and took I-Pin inside. The music on the stereo was a mixed selection of some very old and some popular songs from his homeland. Sakura had loved it, since it meant she had more variety to listen to at home.

I-Pin seemed to relax once inside... likely from the music and the atmosphere.

Fon had sealed her special gift until she was old enough to use it and not take out innocent bystanders.

"Mama, I'm home! Lambo was extra good today," said Sakura. The little Bovino was sitting on her shoulder happy enjoying some grape lollipops.

Nana easily took the little boy from her shoulders, and Lambo didn't hesitate to transfer over to her. He was thriving in this new place, and they had high hopes he'd be able to attend school soon once they heard back from his family.

"Ciaossu, Fon," said Reborn.

Fon blinked.

"Who sent you?"

"Timoteo did," said Reborn.

Fon looked at Sakura with surprise. So she was the heiress of the Vongola now. That made his decision to leave I-Pin with her a much better one... not even her grandparents would be able to remove her if she bonded with the Vongola heiress.

"Who's Timoteo?" asked Sakura.

"One of two people I will be having...words...with the next time I see them," said Reborn darkly.

He had admitted to placing the seal on Sakura, but not any follow up after. It was as if he expected Iemitsu to actually be a real father to his child when he didn't even visit that often.

Reborn smirked and held something up for Fon to see.

Fon blinked, before he groaned.

"Kyouya gave you that, didn't he?"

"He gave me a number of interesting pictures."

"That little..."

He was going to get Kyouya for that. Giving blackmail to Reborn was never a good idea unless you were trying to get him to do something for you later.

Fon glanced at I-Pin, who had quickly fallen under the strange charms of Sakura. The little girl was absolutely smitten with the older one. It was adorable to watch.

Though he was very glad he sealed away her ability to blow up when Lambo took notice of her. In the way of little boys everywhere, the little Bovino started teasing her.

"Now Lambo-kun, that's not very nice. You don't like it when Reborn or Hayato pick on you, so that's no reason to pick on I-Pin," scolded Sakura.

Lambo looked ready to cry. He didn't like being scolded by his Onee-sama.

"On that note, I got a letter from the Bovino Familigia about Lambo. They said they're fine with Sakura adopting him."

"Hear that Lambo? You can stay with us from now on!" said Sakura cheerfully. That made Lambo's day.

Fon looked to Reborn.

"What did it really say?" he asked in Chinese.

"I told the Bovino family Lambo had become her Lightning Guardian and they were more than happy to let him stay as long as she wanted him around," said Reborn. Lambo was very annoying, and if the Vongola Heiress wanted to keep him as a little brother, they were happy to let her so long as she took care of him properly.

"That reminds me... Verde said he might be heading this way at some point with his pet," said Fon.

"Why?"

"I think he saw the sculpture she made of my true form and he's intrigued if she can do that with all of us or just those she's close to."

"She did it to me as well. Less than a week after I came here she started making one of my adult form," said Reborn.

"I'm surprised you haven't run into Viper yet. She's particularly fond of Sakura, as is her partner."

"Viper's been here too?" said Reborn. "I haven't seen the miser in a long time."

"She comes here regularly because her partner likes the sushi at that restaurant run by the retired Rain. She was very put out Sakura knew her gender despite the fact she went to great lengths to hide it."

Actually it was more that she was irritated Sakura told Fon what her gender was, since it was one of the big mysteries of the Arcobelano.

"She said that they were currently tied up since their Sky was recently freed and still healing," said Sakura. "But they should be able to head this way sometime in the near future. Their boss is particularly eager to visit Namimori for reasons she didn't want to explain."

Xanxus wanted to test out the new Decimo heir...and possibly try to assert his own claim as one of the Decimo candidates if he didn't like the "spawn of Iemitsu". Since all he knew of the new heir was that it was a girl about fifteen or sixteen with brown hair that lived in Namimori, they were mostly going to track Reborn down and find her through him.

 

Hibari was minding his own business and keeping an eye on the peace of Namimori when he overheard something he didn't like.

It was Nana, looking everywhere for her wallet.

He didn't frown, but he did look annoyed. He detested those who disturbed the peace of the city...especially when the target was Sakura's mother.

And then he saw someone looking particularly smug about the situation and his day got a whole lot better.

The pick pocket didn't see the tonfa coming. Neither did his two older brothers.

"Oh no, what am I going to do?"

"Wao. Is this yours?" asked a familiar voice.

"Kyouya-kun! You found my wallet!" said Nana in relief.

"Someone particularly foolish took it from your bag. I bit them to death for the offense," said Kyouya, as if he hadn't just left three people bloody on the side of the road.

Considering several people were finding missing items in their possession, the herbivores weren't exactly inclined to care about Hibari's punishment.

It was their own fault for doing it while he was in the area.

Nana was so pleased she convinced him to help carry some of the groceries home so she could make him hamburger steak as a thank you.

"Kyou-chan!" said Sakura happily, hugging him.

"Wao. Hello little bird. Having fun with the new additions?"

Sakura nodded.

"Lambo and I-Pin get along really great, and it's like I have little siblings now! And I-Pin is a really fast learner..." said Sakura happily.

Hibari patted her head gently and let her ramble on. A happy Sakura meant a less violent Kyouya, which was good for everyone. Even if he had to deal with Fon staying in town for a few months so Sakura could learn some new staff forms he had managed to get for her.

At least the annoying carnivore was staying with Sakura, and not him.

 

Hibari was frowning when he saw the large grouping of almost-carnivores surrounding the house. Sakura immediately clung to him from surprise.

"Halt, only members of the Sawada family are allowed past."

Hibari raised his tonfa in his own warning.

"Crowding in front of Sakura-hime's home is not allowed. Leave or I will bite you to death," said Hibari narrowing his eyes.

"Ah, there you are Sakura-chan. Reborn's called in his previous student so you can meet," said Fon from the wall.

The sea of almost-carnivores parted, and Hibari was very displeased.

Fon looked at the 'sea' of Cavallone Family and felt he did owe them at least some minor warning... if only to enjoy the fun of seeing grown men cry when they realized how horribly outclassed they were.

"You do realize that was Sakura-chan's boyfriend with her, right? A particularly vicious and territorial Cloud who hates large groups more than she does?"

"And?" asked Romario.

"Nothing. I think Reborn might actually bring popcorn while we watch the show if you think grouping up in large numbers outside the house is a smart move around Hibari. Though I would advise keeping the noise level down, otherwise he'll really get angry with you."

Something in the way he said that sent bad vibes down their spines. Like he was anticipating a particularly one-sided fight.

Inside the house...

Dino didn't know what to think of the Vongola heiress and Reborn's new unlucky student. Though the baby seemed a hell of a lot more gentle with her than he ever was with him.

Probably because she was a girl.

Or at least that's what he assumed for all of an hour, before he found out the truth.

It was only natural he would wince when he heard the specifics from Reborn...which for very obvious reasons would be kept very firmly a secret until it blew open.

Finding out Sakura was blind was the last thing he expected to learn. She didn't act like it, and the way she moved spoke of training. A lot of training.

Seeing a second Arcobelano actually sitting on her shoulder looking perfectly at ease with being there was another surprise. He had heard of Fon, but hadn't actually been formally introduced.

And don't get him started on the girl's obvious boyfriend. It wasn't "official" according to Reborn, but one look at the way the two interacted and it was pretty damn obvious that the girl and her Cloud were dating. Hell, he was already getting some majorly dark looks from the kid!

Hearing Nana's yelp from upstairs, Dino suddenly realized he hadn't seen his pet Enzo in some time.

Considering Nana had been heading to the restroom, it didn't take a genius to figure out what happened.

"Relax, stupid Dino. Sakura can handle this sort of thing better than you can. Just watch."

"But she can't see."

"She doesn't need to see," said Reborn cryptically.

It was the only reason he had kept his silence on her condition to the Familigia.

Dino went upstairs...and found Enzo calmly sitting in her lap, despite the way he had to weigh at least a ton with how much water he absorbed.

The turtle was never that calm around newcomers. He still bit Dino.

"What...how?" said Dino baffled.

"She has that effect on almost everyone...and her Flame is still firmly sealed," said Reborn smugly.

Watching her train with the little Chinese assassin with Fon occasionally correcting them both, Dino had to admit, her prospects as a Mafia Boss were better than his when he was her age.

Sakura had a quiet strength and a sort of magnetism that simply drew you in and didn't let go. And all of it was accomplished without any Flames.

"Hmm? It seems her ability drew you in too," said Reborn.

Dino blinked...then he realized that he hadn't tripped over anything or any other minor accident despite sending his men away for the night.

How strange.

Reborn smirked.

"How about a test for her growing Family?" said Reborn.

"I'm listening..."

"Count me out," said Fon without hesitation. "Not unless you bring popcorn first."


	8. Chapter 8

Sakura let out a squeak of surprise when she was picked up without warning while walking home from school with her friends. It took a few seconds to register Dino's presence.

"What's going on?"

"Reborn wants to play a prank on your Family. He wants to see if they'd jump into a dangerous situation if they thought you had been kidnapped," explained Dino.

Sakura blinked, before she slowly said... "You do realize that most of the yakuza in the area have fallen under the control of Kyou-chan and his Disciplinary Committee...right?"

"What?"

"Well there is a local Yakuza gang, but after one time I went into the wrong area and ended up captured by them, Kyouya took control of it and has them on a tight leash to avoid a repeat."

Kyouya had not been pleased to find Sakura had ended up caught by the local Yakuza and had only felt very annoyed upon discovering her chatting in a friendly manner with the girls while drinking tea. They had taken one look at her dress and had immediately did a little kidnapping of their own.

It said a lot about her personality that the hookers and prostitutes who lived in the city all adored Sakura and knew her on sight. She didn't think less of them for their occupation or the fact they were in organized crime.

And Kyouya... well they usually tossed the "new recruits" his way to toughen them up and to insure they knew damn well who really ruled the area and his rules.

He got to bite people to death that would have otherwise caused trouble, and the ones that survived usually rose through the ranks very quickly.

Dino stared...before he started laughing.

"I don't believe this. Reborn said you had a budding Familigia, but from the sound of it you already have one through your Cloud!"

No wonder her name around town was Sakura-hime!

The fact she wasn't already firmly entrenched in the underworld was amazing, especially since there was so little actual information on her.

"Wao. Why are your two knights playing with the weaker branch of the weaker carnivores?" asked Hibari.

Fon snorted.

"Reborn came up with a 'prank' involving a kidnapped Sakura-hime and then sent them on the path of the weak carnivores to see how they would react. It shouldn't be long before they figure out it's a trick," said Fon.

Considering Sakura's phone rang around that time, she answered it.

"Hello? Hayato-kun, I'm perfectly fine. In fact Dino-san is right next to me as is Fon-sensei. Oh, so you found the newer recruits of Kyouya's friends? Tell Yoshi-san I said hi," said Sakura pleasantly.

You could hear Hayato's disbelieving voice...before another shouted hello back.

Reborn appeared around that time.

"Well it's about time for us to rescue them," he said. "The local yakuza is quite skilled in martial arts and is already started to make plans to take on some of the large Tokyo based groups."

Sakura huffed in exasperation.

"I think Yoshi-san will understand, considering they know better than to try and kidnap me. Unless it's the girls again for a shopping trip in the black market. Mama really likes some of the things they sell there."

Reborn paused.

"What."

"Well the yakuza in town are all under the indirect leadership of Kyou-chan. He lets them get away with minor crimes and 'plays' with their rookies and in exchange they serve under him if something comes up. Why did you think the town is so peaceful, even in the slums? Even Kyouya's Disciplinary Committee can't be everywhere all the time."

Reborn scowled. How the hell did he miss that?

"Wow... I've never seen him look this annoyed," said Dino.

"Considering the file I got from CEDEF is ridiculously out of date and is missing far too much, I have every reason to be irritable. And how the hell do you know where the black market is anyway?"

"Less crowded than the malls and they know to keep their voices down when I'm there," shrugged Sakura. She did most of her shopping there actually. It was where Mama was able to get her hands on a small kiln perfect for setting up in the back yard. The yakuza were even nice enough to fix it up for her for free.

Reborn looked suitably miffed.

"And don't get me started on the hospitals. They all adore Kyou-chan because he keeps them all very busy with easy to treat injuries," said Sakura cheerfully.

Dino snorted. A hospital would love a violent little brat like Hibari, because the most they would need is bandages, splints and anything for internal trauma.

"Hime! Why didn't you tell us Hibari had already conquered the yakuza?" said Hayato in disbelief.

The second the Momoyoukai found out they were looking for "Sakura-hime" and realized who they were talking about, they damn near fell over themselves trying to help find her, for almost identical reasons as the two teens.

The fear of having Hibari bite them to death for allowing Sakura to be kidnapped was a very powerful and terrifying thing. Almost as bad as what their wives would do to them if they didn't help.

It was an unspoken fact Sakura had an odd habit of matching the more successful members with women that could both tolerate their lifestyle and wouldn't get on their ass about the little stuff.

Instead they'd just gang up on their men to get them to behave or else.

Reborn grumbled under his breath as Fon snickered at him.

"You could have asked me you know. I do at least keep tabs on my grandson and his girlfriend," said Fon. His daughter was more than happy to send him letters on the matter. Including pictures.

 

Dino had to admit, sitting still for a sculpture was strange... but not as much as watching Reborn sitting on his little hammock calmly reading the paper while classical music played in the background without once trying to cause trouble.

Or seeing the little assassin kids painting on a plastic sheet and actually behaving.

Fon was sitting on the bed leaning against Sakura and openly napping.

"And that should be enough to work with," said Sakura pleased.

Dino looked at the rough shape of the clay. It was really good, and totally worth letting her get a feel of his face so she could make it more accurate. If he didn't know any better he'd swear he had suddenly turned to clay or something.

"I'm surprised you haven't tried using stone instead of clay."

"Too noisy and my hand could slip. Besides, clay is much more forgiving and easier to work with. But if you think I'm good you should see Bel and his ice sculptures sometime. We occasionally hit art museums and he describes the work for me," said Sakura.

"Sounds like a nice guy."

"He's a bloodthirsty, psychotic prince who has far too much fun competing with Kyou-chan over who can dispose of the most amateur hit men and has a weird laugh," corrected Sakura. She could feel the incredulous air around Dino, especially when she continued "And I'm fairly certain he's a professional assassin who only agreed to be nice to me because I actually treat him like the exiled prince he is and not like the spoiled brat he behaves like a lot."

"Sakura-hime, who exactly is Bel?" said Reborn dangerously. Dino winced from the tone alone. It spoke of humiliating training sessions in the new future.

Fon woke up and snorted from amusement.

"She's talking about the Varia Storm officer," said Fon.

Reborn was absolutely twitching at the moment. Dino cringed, and was very, very glad that he wasn't the man's student anymore.

"You know a member of the Varia personally to the point he allows you to call him 'Bel'?" he said, twitching.

"She knows most of them, save for the Lightning and Cloud. I'm sure Squalo will have a good long laugh when he finds out she's corrupted Dino," corrected Fon.

Reborn did not look happy, though only Fon caught most of what the man was saying. He was smiling peacefully but was absolutely enjoying the torment Sakura-hime unintentionally put the Sun through.

If Iemitsu didn't end up in intensive care when Reborn got his hands on him, he'd be surprised.

Dino let off a nervous laugh.

How was being blind a disadvantage again? This girl had bigger balls than he did when he was still in training and she was a civilian at the time!

To think, Reborn couldn't inflict his usual training methods on her because she had lost her sight due to trauma, which meant any more might make things worse!

"Are there any other surprises you'd like to spring on me?"

"Not at the moment," said Sakura after thinking on it.

Reborn grumbled under his breath in irritation.

He was going to kill Iemitsu for this.

 

It was such a peaceful day. For about five minutes.

Then Reborn started swearing rather loudly and with great relish and variety when Hayato practically started shouting about the "Hime being kidnapped for real this time!" and how he was going to brutally murder whoever was responsible since he doubted Reborn would play the same trick twice.

For one thing, there weren't any other organized groups in Namimori that could possibly think kidnapping Sakura was a smart move. Kyouya had conquered and dominated them all, even if Reborn hadn't found that out until his little prank.

Kyouya was terrifyingly efficient when it came to keeping his Sakura-hime safe.

Finding out she had befriended the majority of the Varia officers was bad enough. Especially when she pulled out a few sculptures that she had in the back she had been meaning to send, because it meant he couldn't pretend she was joking when he clearly recognized them, from Squalo's ridiculously long hair and sword arm to Viper's familiar cowl and frog.

He was so killing Iemitsu for this.

With Sakura...

Most girls, especially those who couldn't see, would be panicking at the moment.

With her, it was more of a way to hide how annoyed she was. She might be shy, but she wasn't some whimpering wallflower when there was danger around!

Kyou-chan and Fon made very certain of that.

She didn't play up her act too much...among other things Fon taught her how to play the victim when she was being held captive so she could come from behind and turn out to be a dragon in disguise. She didn't need sight to hear the thugs laugh coldly about leaving her in a darkened room with only limited light, tied up firmly with some old rope.

Once assured they weren't coming in anytime soon, she used the skills Fon trained into her to undo the bindings. Luckily she never kept her staff anywhere obvious. Most people wouldn't think to check a girl's socks for a weapon.

And they didn't know she spoke Italian fluently.

Apparently some rival Familigia of the Vongola... the Esterneo... had heard rumors of her existence and thought her an easy target because she was A, a girl, and B, mentally handicapped.

Her retaliation of pain was going to be extra unpleasant when she got her hands on those jerks. She wasn't mentally handicapped, regardless of what the rumors said!

She hid a smile, and was very, very glad hair pins were a part of her wardrobe. Not only did they keep the bangs out of her face, but they were so very useful as lockpicks.

Then again Reborn had yet to realize Fon had literally trained her to behave like a hit man/thief, for when they graduated high school. Mostly because while he suspected she had Sky flames, he wasn't entirely sure so had decided to be prepared in case she wasn't.

She had the lock undone within minutes, and considering the sounds beyond the door it was clear she was somewhere underground. It was hard to tell when she had been roughly carried and the noises overlapped so much that it made 'seeing' difficult.

Well, she wasn't going to get out and dance some fools to death for this little stunt just standing there.

Outside the base...

Dino had been quick to join in the search and rescue of Sakura-hime...and now even he was calling her that. Great.

It felt weird working with several yakuza types that normally took offense to outsiders, but this was a special case. Not only had the girl wormed her way into what remained of their humanity, but she had them by the balls via her Cloud Hibari. The reason she was so well loved was easy to understand. She treated them like humans and didn't take advantage of them.

Hibari for the most part was only mildly irritated and for some reason amused.

Hayato was outright panicking and had to be held back by Reborn. Basically he was acting like a typical Storm.

Dino walked over to where Hibari was.

"Why are you amused?" he asked, if only to get his mind off things.

"Because odds are we'll mostly be doing the mopping up when we find her."

"...What?"

"Sakura-hime isn't exactly the shy little princess you seem to think she is. Take a look at them... they know just as well as I do she can handle herself until we get there and she has an advantage her kidnappers don't. All she has to do is take out the lights and she'll have the upper hand without having to lift a finger against them."

"What."

Reborn came and sat on Hibari's shoulder.

"How bad?"

"She hasn't killed anyone yet, but all those times I took her out to dancing? We didn't exactly 'dance'."

Reborn looked ready to strangle someone. Preferably Iemitsu.

An hour later they found her...and the broken and groaning bodies of her victims.

"What took you so long?" she asked.

Dino stared at the stick he had thought was her walking cane.

It wasn't.

"I see you got to practice those forms I taught you earlier," said Fon pleased.

"They were really effective, Fon-sensei!" she said far too cheerfully.

"How?"

"Did I forget to mention that she's been training in advanced forms of staff fighting since she was around eight?" said Hibari smugly. "I bite people... she dances them to death."

"Dances?" repeated Dino in disbelief. What an odd term to call it.

Seeing her 'loosen up' after basically beating several rent-a-thugs into unconsciousness, he could start to understand what he meant by that. With the way she moved, it did look like dancing of a sort. And it was also pretty clear she had gotten quite a bit of gymnastic training or possibly a lot of yoga. She was very flexible.

If he didn't know for a fact she was blind, he never would have suspected it.

Smart move on Fon's part then.


	9. Chapter 9

Sakura couldn't help but feel a genuine glimmer of respect as a fighter from the men Dino brought. The yakuza already knew she was dangerous in her own right...she just didn't enjoy it as much as Kyouya did.

However the Italians never suffered through the same "initiation test" that the local gangs put the rookies through which mostly consisted of one goal.

Survive an encounter with an angry Hibari Kyouya and calm Sawada Sakura alive. To be fair, most of those Sakura beat were lucky...while she didn't hold back her hits she was a lot less likely to hit someplace that did permanent damage like Kyouya did.

According to the survivors, Sakura had immediately gone after the power grid then used her smaller size to her advantage by keeping well out of the way of the thugs while sending out distractions. She only got physical shortly before the group arrived.

Reborn was impressed and said so outright. Fon was pleased and made a note to teach her some of the harder staff moves later as a reward.

Kyouya just wished this had happened when they were alone so he could have kissed her senseless. Displays of power like this were a major turn on for him. Especially when it was coming from his little bird.

Fon smirked at his grandson, as if knowing what was on the boy's mind. Ah, the fun of raising teenagers.

 

However that wasn't the end of people from Italy coming to cause trouble. Sakura found herself facing another issue less than a week and a half after the incident.

And it was all because of a little boy who really needed help.

Sakura found the little boy (who was thankfully older than Lambo or I-Pin...maybe nine or so) who was causing things to float. It wasn't doing any harm, so she left him alone. Then she heard what he was actually saying and her eyebrows went up a bit.

Was he trying to rank her abilities? How strange.

"Ah! Sakura-nee!" he said in surprise, realizing she was right there.

She raised an eyebrow, but her warm smile remained.

"Hello little one. What's your name?"

Suddenly the boy jolted, as if he saw something. Her senses alerted her to a large group of older men who didn't belong. Her hand lashed out and she pulled him into one of the many alcoves of the school until they were safely out of sight.

"Thanks, Sakura-nee!"

"I take it they're after you?" she asked.

He nodded, then belatedly realized something.

"They want my book."

So he already knew she was blind? How interesting.

Sakura pulled out her phone and dialed the second number.

"Kyou-chan, it seems like another bunch of Italians is here to make trouble again. No, they don't seem to be after me specifically, but they do want a little boy. Sure, I can take him to the roof."

The little boy looked at her confused, but didn't fight back as she lead him through the school and onto the roof. Almost immediately Hibari was there.

"What happened?"

"I found him on the school grounds and he was doing something, and after he realized I was there a small group of men came after him. He said they want his book," said Sakura.

Hibari looked at the little boy, who promptly did his best puppy dog eyes at him.

"Small animal, why are they after you?"

The boy pulled out a large, almost massive book.

"I can rank people with a hundred percent accuracy, and in the underworld anyone who has this sort of information can move up very quickly," he said quietly.

"He also called me 'Sakura-nee' and apparently already knew I am blind," she informed him.

Hibari gave the kid a look.

"You're going to drag Sakura-hime into this aren't you?"

The kid went to a specific series of pages, and pointed out her name.

"Out of the mafia, Sakura-nee is ranked number one at not turning down requests from small children, the last for ambition, and the among the top fifty when it comes to combat ability from those with Flames. The Todd family barely rates in the top hundred," he informed Hibari.

"Oh? And where do I fit in the combat ability rankings?"

"Top twenty-five, though it's been a while since I ranked you," said the kid immediately. Hibari was definitely pleased to hear that. "Though if you want your rankings as a Cloud Guardian... you're in the number one spot, right above that of the Cloud Arcobaleno Skull."

"Alright small animal, if you want Sakura-hime's help I'll allow it. Stay here until the end of school and I'll walk you home," said Hibari, in a very good mood. Sakura ruffled the boy's hair.

"You definitely earned his approval, little one. What's your name?"

"Fuuta. They call me the Ranking Prince, Sakura-nee."

Sakura sat down and hugged Fuuta. He certainly didn't seem to mind it, in fact she could feel him relaxing in her arms. Clearly the poor kid had been chased quite a bit, and was exhausted.

Well, they certainly had a room already housing small children and she didn't think Lambo or I-Pin would mind sharing a room with a third child.

Fuuta was holding her hand rather tightly as they went back to the house. Fon took one look at the boy and blinked.

"Why is the Ranking Prince here?"

"He's being chased," said Sakura. "Hypothetically if I were to grant him sanctuary with our group, what would happen?"

"Then anyone seeking to purchase rankings from him would have to go through you first, if he agrees to the protection. Generally speaking he's supposed to be a neutral entity. But then again so are you, to a point, because you haven't been officially recognized as a Vongola yet. You're still just a potential heir until the rings are distributed," said Fon.

Fuuta happily accepted the juice from the fridge and sat down. Now they just had to wait, because Sakura had honest doubts a mere mafioso could possibly handle someone like Kyouya.

They didn't have to wait long. And unfortunately for the mafioso chasing Fuuta, they had no idea of the demon lying in wait for them to arrive.

Hibari was positively grinning as he walked outside the house and into full view of the Italians.

"For the crime of crowding and disturbing the peace of Namimori, I will bite you to death," he said viciously.

The mafioso laughed, mocking him because they mistook him for an ordinary civilian. And then they saw Fon, calmly bringing out a tea set and some snacks to watch the show.

"I'll grade the beat down, grandson," he said smirking.

"Wao. I don't need your approval you damn carnivore," said Hibari. He raised his tonfa and charged right in.

Their mocking laughter turned into screams of pain and agony as the vicious Cloud Guardian ripped through them like wet tissue paper. Fon ignored the screaming and was smiling as he took in his grandson's skills.

The brat might not like him, but he at least didn't complain about all the lessons on how to fight with his precious tonfa. And that was before his daughter's brother-in-law took the kid to learn how to fight dirty from some of his cop buddies.

There was brutality, and then there was police brutality. And Kyouya was a very enthusiastic student when it came to both.

Sakura, on the other hand, was cheerfully asking Fuuta what he wanted to eat that night. The kid was practically skin and bones, and tired to boot.

Fon was sitting on Hibari's shoulder, ignoring the small amounts of blood spatter from some rather vicious hits.

"Wao. Small animal, do opponents like them show up after you often?" said Hibari.

Fuuta winced and Sakura pulled him into a hug.

"I'll take that as a yes. We're keeping him here," said Hibari pleased.

"You just want more fake carnivores like those idiots to show up so you can fight them off," scolded Sakura. The fact he didn't deny it said volumes.

Fuuta blinked.

"Really?" he asked.

"You're welcome to stay here if you want Fuuta. Like you said, I have zero interest in your book and the only thing Kyou-chan cares about is fighting off the idiots who come after you. At most your rankings would just be used to put him in a better mood and more inclined to show something that almost resembles mercy," said Sakura.

Fuuta's eyes began to tear up. The poor kid had been an orphan for some time because of his abilities and he was always chased to get to his book.

"There, there. You're safe here," said Sakura soothingly, rubbing his back.

It was the first decent night's sleep he had gotten since he realized the danger he was in as the Ranking Prince.

 

Reborn waited for Fuuta to get settled in before he asked a serious question.

"What are Sakura-hime's rankings as a mafia boss?"

He needed to send something to the Vongola as proof that she was a very strong candidate for Decimo. Timoteo was getting rather antsy since Reborn hadn't been sending in very many reports that gave him a solid answer.

Sending a copy of her rankings would go a long way to shutting them up and an honest answer to somethings he wanted answered himself.

As predicted, everything started to float around Fuuta.

"Sakura-hime's ability to convert enemies into allies is ranked at the number one. Her ability to handle difficult subordinates without resorting to violence is number one. Her skills at hiding in plain sight is ranked at number one. Her ability to fight without Flames is ranked at twenty-seven. Her ability to inspire others is ranked at number one. Her untapped potential is currently out of range,"said Fuuta, who immediately wrote it down twice.

"It's that high?"

"No, the Ranking Planet doesn't have a number to quantify her potential."

Well that brought up a lot of questions on it's own.

"So her potential as a Boss is fairly high? What about her ranking as a mere figurehead?"

Fuuta checked.

"Her potential as a mere figurehead of the Vongola...is ranked dead last. Her ranking should they attempt such a thing rates her as number one to create a new Familigia unintentionally and inspire them to revolt against the current Family and replace it."

Reborn winced. He shouldn't have asked, but he had to.

He wondered how Iemitsu would react if he saw that ranking.

"Fuuta! Reborn! Dinner!" shouted Nana.

They went downstairs and Reborn showed Fon the rankings. The Storm snorted.

"Considering Kyouya only took the shadow leadership of the yakuza in the area for Sakura-hime's sake, that doesn't surprise me in the least."

"I'm debating on whether to share that particular ranking with the Vongola," said Reborn.

"Have Fuuta give it to them in person if they make a fuss. Otherwise leave it."

Reborn agreed. He even cut off that part because he didn't want them to find out he had asked such a thing.

 

In the Vongola Headquarters...

Timoteo looked at one of the now rare reports sent by Reborn on little Sakura's training. Except it was a bit thicker than normal.

Closer examination revealed why. Reborn had apparently stumbled across the Ranking Prince and gotten a ranking on the girl he was training.

Most of her rankings were very favorable, considering he was hoping to change the family back to the way things were when the Vongola first started out, not what it had become. He just wished he didn't have to sacrifice a little girl who had been raised a civilian with a Flame seal to the underworld like this.

Further inspection of the letter spoke favorably of Sakura's ability to lead the family. She had taken the Ranking Prince in and her Cloud Guardian had agreed to deal with anyone who sought to take the child by force. So she had found the Ranking Prince, not Reborn.

He did wonder why Reborn wasn't sending regular reports. It was almost like he was hiding something.

 

"You really shouldn't tease the poor boy so," said Fon. He almost sounded like he was scolding Reborn.

Reborn huffed.

"If Hayato wants to remain the Storm Guardian he's going to have to learn some variety when it comes to fighting. His ability to use bombs is adequate, but considering they bother the princess he needs something to fall back on. Either that or we train her to not flinch and go into a panic attack when loud noises like explosions happen."

He was slowly acclimatizing her to loud noises, but it wasn't enough to get her used to loud explosions. Lambo was a brat, but at least he could be useful in training her not to go into a panic attack.

She could stand small explosions now, even if it wrecked her ability to 'see' via sound.

Fon scoffed.

"I suppose I could help the boy shift his Flames from Active to 'Useful'," he said.

"Let him sweat a little bit. He still hasn't figured out why Shamal dropped him as a student," said Reborn flatly.

The boy was very dedicated to his Sky...but he had no sense of self worth and was likely to get himself and his Sky killed with how little he thought of his own life.

Once he got that lesson through his thick head, then Shamal might finish his training.

With Hayato...

"No," said Hibari flatly.

"Why not?" asked Hayato.

"I don't train puppy knights into carnivores," said Hibari. "Why are you so interested in this now anyway?"

"Reborn said something about Fon replacing me as Hime's Storm Guardian."

Hibari looked openly irritated now. Then again, mentioning Fon usually did that for him.

"Wao. Stupid puppy, can't you see he's playing a fast one on you?"

Hayato was just glad Hibari didn't kick his ass for bothering him.

"Well how else am I supposed to figure out how to fight without my explosives?"

"Ask the damn carnivore. He trained the little bird from a chick into a bird of prey," said Hibari without any sympathy. "Now leave."

Considering Hibari was being unusually lenient with him for annoying him with this, Hayato left.

There was silence, then...

"Fake baby, if you even think of bothering me I will not hesitate to tell Sakura who it was that ate the last of her favorite ice cream," said Hibari.

"..."

Hibari rolled over, pleased the fake baby had left him alone.

With Fon...

The Storm Arcobaleno was sipping his tea calmly. Claiming he had harmonized with the Vongola heiress was the best move he had made in a long time. The home was peaceful, but at the same time danced the dangerous edge of chaos. And he got to tease his grandson while teaching his students.

Things were good.

And wouldn't you know it, chaos came back to visit him in the form of the "Puppy Knight" as Kyouya insisted on calling him.

"Please teach me," he asked, conceding defeat.

"Depends on what you want to learn. You don't have nearly the amount of dedication to martial arts I require in my apprentices, and I do not rely on explosives," said Fon.

"I want to protect hime without hurting her by accident," said Hayato.

Fon gave him a side-long look.

"I can teach you how to use your Flames, but how far you make it is entirely up to you. Perhaps you can even figure out the reason why Shamal ended his stint as your teacher in the process," said Fon, sipping his tea.

**Author's Note:**

> I will warn you all now that since sakurademonalchemist is the original author of this story and several others of hers that she is letting me post here, my updates with the stories will depend on when she posts.
> 
> Some will be quicker as she has several chapters up, but as I approach where she last posted, I will be waiting for her to post he next chapter.


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